“Okay,” Sam said. “We grab them. Dekka, it’ll be on you and Jack to move them. We’ll have Brianna check out the area, make sure no one’s around. They’re just inside Caine’s borders. We’ll need to get them across our line as quick as possible. Get them loaded onto a pickup.”
“Burn gas?” Mohamed asked.
“It’s worth the gas,” Sam said.
Mohamed spread his hands apologetically. “Gas is under Albert’s control.”
“Look, if Albert gives us the gas he’s supporting us,” Sam said. “So how about if this once we just do it? It won’t be more than a couple of gallons. We’ll skim from several different tanks so it won’t show on your books.”
Mohamed took an even longer pause than normal. “You never said that, and I never heard you.”
“That’s not true,” Toto said.
“Yeah,” Dekka said, rolling her eyes, “we know.”
“Okay. Tonight,” Sam said. “Breeze out front; Dekka, Jack, and me in the truck. We park the truck and the three of us head to the beach. Hopefully we’re back by morning.”
“What about me, boss?” Edilio asked.
“Deputy mayor is a heavy burden sometimes, dude.” Sam smiled. He felt a rush from the idea of a daring nighttime mission. Edilio was right: running the lake had been boring after the first frantic month. Sam basically hated handling all the little details and decisions. Most of his day was taken up dealing with stupid fights over nothing—kids fighting over ownership of a toy or some food, people slacking off on work they owed to the town, crazy ideas for getting out of the FAYZ, unhappiness over accommodations, violations of sanitary rules. Increasingly—not without a feeling of guilt—he had turned most of it over to Edilio.
It had been months since Sam had been involved in any serious craziness. And this mission had just enough craziness without any real danger.
The meeting broke up. Sam stood up, stretched, and noticed Sinder and Jezzie running along the shore from the eastern end, where they were tending a small, irrigated plot of vegetables.
Something about their body language spelled trouble.
Sam’s houseboat was tied up at the end of the surviving dock. (It had doubled as the stage for the Friday Fun Fest.) He waited until Sinder and Jezzie were below him on the dock.
“Sam!” Sinder gasped. She was in her modified Goth stage—it was hard to find makeup, but she could still manage to find black clothing.
“T’sup, Sinder? Hi, Jezzie.”
Sinder gathered her wits, took a steadying breath, and said, “This is going to sound crazy, but the wall… It’s changing.”
“We were weeding the carrots,” Jezzie said.
“And then we noticed this, like, black stain on the barrier.”
“What?”
“The barrier,” Sinder said. “It’s changing color.”
SIX
43 HOURS, 17 MINUTES
QUINN LEFT HIS crews to unload the catch at the dock. Normally he went straight to Albert to report the day’s haul, but he had a more pressing concern today. He wanted to check on Cigar.
It was still an hour or so to sundown. He wanted to at least yell some encouragement to his friend and crewman.
The plaza was empty. The town was mostly empty—the pickers were in the fields still.
Turk lounged on the steps of town hall. He was asleep with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes and his rifle between his crossed legs.
A girl walked across the square with hurried steps. She glanced fearfully toward town hall. Quinn knew her a little, so he gave a small wave. But she glanced at him, shook her head, and scurried off.
Feeling worried now, Quinn headed into the building. He climbed the stairs to the detention room where Cigar would be.
He found the door easily enough. He listened and heard nothing from inside. “Cigar? You in there?”
The door opened, revealing Penny. She was still wearing a summer dress, and she was still barefoot. She blocked the door.
“It’s not time yet,” Penny said.
There was blood on her dress.
Blood on her narrow feet.
Her eyes were feverish. Lit up. Ecstatic.
Quinn took it all in at a glance. “Get out of my way,” Quinn said.
Penny looked at him. Like she was trying to see something inside his head. Considering. Measuring.
Anticipating.
“What have you done, you witch?” Quinn demanded. His breath was coming short. His heart was pounding. The skin on his sunburned arms was cracking, turning deathly white and cracking like dried mud. Deep cracks.
“You’re not threatening me, are you, Quinn?”
The eruption on Quinn’s arm stopped, reversed itself, and his skin was back to what it should be.
“I want to see Cigar,” Quinn said, swallowing his fear.
Penny nodded. “Okay. Okay, Quinn. Come on in.”
Quinn pushed past her.
Cigar was in a corner. He seemed at first to be asleep. But his shirt was soaked with blood.
“Cigar, man. You okay?”
Cigar did not move. Quinn knelt by him and raised his head. It took Quinn a few terrible seconds to make sense of what he was seeing.
Cigar’s eyes were gone. Two black-and-red holes stared from the front of Cigar’s face.
Then Cigar screamed.
Quinn jumped back.
“What have you done? What have you done?”
“I never touched him,” Penny said with a happy laugh. “Look at his fingers! Look at his wrists! He did it all himself. It was funny to watch.”